Gurdjieff Meditations Techniques

1: Remember in a Dream that it is a Dream

Osho – Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that the most important thing is to remember in a dream that “This is a dream.” But how to do it? It seems almost impossible. How to remember in a dream that “This is a dream”? But if you practice the Gurdjieffian method, one day you can remember it. The method is simple. You have to go on remembering the whole day, whatsoever you see, that “This is a dream.” Walking on the street, “This is a dream”; the dog barking, “This is a dream.” Go on remembering the whole day, “This is a dream, this is a dream….” It takes three to nine month for the idea to sink into your heart.

Then one day, suddenly, in your dream you remember and you say, “This is a dream!” — and that is a moment of great illumination. Immediately, the dream disappears. The moment you say it is a dream, it disappears and you are awake, fully awake, in the middle of the night. Of course, these trees and the people on the road are not a dream so they don’t disappear. You can go on saying, “This is a dream.” That was just a method to practice. But when you really remember in a dream that “This is a dream,” the dream disappears. The dream can exist only if believed; the dream disappears if you don’t believe in it. Our imagination is intoxicating.

2: Become Detach from your Acts

Osho – You will have to be a little separate from your acts; then you will be able to know what unawareness is. Somebody insults you; immediately, instantly, anger arises. It is like pushing a button and the light comes on. There is no gap: you push a button and the light comes on. The light has no time to think whether to come on or not. Somebody insults you; he pushes a button and immediately you are enraged. Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, “Wait at least for five minutes. What is the hurry? Let him insult you, let him finish first. Then you close your eyes and wait for five minutes, and watch what is happening inside you — anger boiling.”

Gurdjieff himself became enlightened through this simple procedure: that whatsoever is mechanical in man he tried to make it non mechanical. And all is mechanical in you — anger, lust, greed, jealousy — all is mechanical. It simply is there whenever somebody pushes a button. You are functioning like a robot. Become a man. That’s what meditation is all about, that’s what sannyas is all about. Create a little distance. Next time somebody insults you, give it five minutes, sit silently for five minutes, and then you can become angry. I am not saying “Don’t become angry” — because that will be too much. I am saying that just for five minutes allow a gap, and you will be surprised: after five minutes it is not the same anger that it would have been five minutes before.

3: Because you are not functioning according to the robot

Osho – Mind has two parts: one is the learning part, the other is the robot part. The learning part learns; whenever you are learning something you are more aware. For example, if you are learning driving you are more aware — you have to be. The moment you have learned it, the learning part gives its information to the robot part. Once you have learned driving, then you don’t need any awareness; you simply go on doing it mechanically. You turn towards your house, you arrive in your garage, you lock the car. You are doing everything like a robot. And this is the story of your life, twenty-four hours a day. Change it!

Gurdjieff’s method was this: if some vegetarian had come to him as a disciple, the first thing he would insist was, “Eat meat!” Now this is a very shocking thing for a vegetarian — to be told to eat meat. And Gurdjieff was a tough master; he would throw you out if you didn’t listen to him, if you didn’t follow the command, if you didn’t follow the discipline. He would force you to eat meat. Now, when a vegetarian eats meat he becomes very conscious — he has to. He has no idea in the past, no experience in the past, of eating meat. Just think of Mahatma Gandhi eating meat… he will become tremendously aware!

And if there was a meat-eater, then Gurdjieff would say, “For a few weeks you be just vegetarian. Don’t eat meat at all — no eggs, no meat, no milk, no animal food of any kind. Just go on eating vegetables.” The whole body system had become accustomed to a certain pattern. He would change people’s eating hours. If you were eating every day at one o’clock, he would say, “Eat at nine.” If you were going to sleep every day at twelve, he would say to go at two or at ten. He would change everything. A man who had never been drinking wine, he would force to drink wine just to change and shatter his pattern. The man who had been a drunkard, he would stop him from drinking.

Gurdjieff was puzzling to people, but the method is simple: he was trying to de-automatize. He was one of the greatest masters of this age, very much misunderstood. Naturally, everybody was against him. Who has ever heard of religious masters forcing their disciples to drink? — FORCING, actually forcing. And he would sit there….

The greatest thing in his commune was the dinner. It used to last four, five, six, seven hours. Every evening it would start… and it would end in the middle of the night. And he himself would take care of everybody, of what was being eaten, of what was given to them — and he would go on forcing. People would become so drunk they would fall on the ground, and they would start saying things in their drunkenness — and he would sit by the side and listen. He also used to drink with them, but he had worked hard on the way. He was a tantra master. He had been to India and to Tibet too, just to learn tantra.

Tantra has special methods how to go on drinking and yet remain aware. YOU cannot be aware even without drinking. Tantra has methods to slowly slowly drink, and keep awareness, not to lose track of your awareness. Slowly slowly, the quantity of your drug has to be increased as you increase in your awareness. A moment comes when — you will be surprised to know, still there are people in the East who practice it — a moment comes, when no drug can affect your consciousness at all.

Then the last thing they try is this: they keep poisonous snakes and they allow the snake to bite them on their tongue; that is the last method. Ordinarily a man will die…. These snakes are absolutely poisonous. Three percent of the snakes in India are dangerous; you cannot survive their bite — once bitten you are gone. But these tantra masters will remain alert even in that moment and they will not die. Their bodies have become accustomed to all kinds of poisons and they have become alert, so alert that no drug can affect them. Gurdjieff used to use that method with his disciples, simply to shatter your settled habits.

Osho – Gurdjieff used this technique very much. He created situations, but to create situations a school is needed. You cannot do that alone. Gurdjieff had a small school in Fontainebleau, and he was a taskmaster. He knew how to create situations. You would enter the room, and a group would be sitting there. You would enter the room where a group was sitting, and something would be done so that you would get angry. And it would be done so naturally that you could never imagine that some situation was being created for you.

But it was a device. Someone would insult you by saying something, and you would get disturbed. Then everyone would help the disturbance and you would become mad. And when you were right at the point where you could explode, Gurdjieff would shout, ”Remember! Remain undisturbed!” A situation can be created, but only in a school where many persons are working on themselves. And when Gurdjieff would shout, ”Remember! Remain undisturbed,” now you would know that this was a created situation. The disturbance cannot disappear so suddenly, so immediately, because it has physical roots.

Your glands had thrown poison in the blood; your body had become affected. Anger cannot disappear so immediately. Even now that you had come to know that you had been deceived, that no one was insulting you and no one meant anything by it, it would be difficult to do anything. The anger is there, your body is filled with it – but suddenly your temperature cools down. Only on the body, on the periphery, does the anger remain. At the center you suddenly cool down, and you know that a point exists within you which is undisturbed.

You start laughing. Your eyes are red with anger; your face is violent, animal-like, but you start laughing. You know two things now – a point which is undisturbed and a periphery which is disturbed. You can help. Your family can become a school; you can help each other. Friends can become a school and they can help each other. You can decide with your family… the whole family can decide that now a situation has to be created for the father or for the mother, and then the whole family works to create the situation.

When the father or mother goes completely mad, then everyone starts laughing and says, ”Remain completely undisturbed.” You can help each other, and the experience is simply wonderful. Once you know a cool center within you in a hot situation, you cannot forget it, and then in any hot situation you can remember it, reclaim it, regain it.

5: Sutra from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra “”BE AWARE YOU ARE AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING”:

Osho – This technique is one of the most helpful, and it has been used for millennia by many teachers, masters. Buddha used it, Mahavira used it, Jesus used it, and in modern times Gurdjieff used it. Among all the techniques, this is one of the most potential. Try it. It will take time; months will pass. When Ouspensky was learning with Gurdjieff, for three months he had to make much effort, arduous effort, in order to have a glimpse of what self-remembering is. So continuously, for three months, Ouspensky lived in a secluded house just doing only one thing – self-remembering.

Thirty persons started that experiment, and by the end of the first week twenty-seven had escaped; only three remained. The whole day they were trying to remember – not doing anything else, just remembering that ”I am.” Twenty-seven felt they were going crazy. They felt that now madness was just near, so they escaped. They never turned back; they never met Gurdjieff again. Why? As we are, really, we are mad. Not remembering who we are, what we are, we are mad, but this madness is taken as sanity. Once you try to go back, once you try to contact the real, it will look like craziness, it will look like madness. Compared to what we are, it is just the reverse, the opposite. If you feel that this is sanity, that will look like madness.

But three persisted. One of the three was P. D. Ouspensky. For three months they persisted. Only after the first month did they start having glimpses of simply being – of ”I am.” After the second month, even the ”I” dropped, and they started having the glimpses of ”am-ness” – of just being, not even of ”I”, because ”I” is also a label. The pure being is not ”I” and ”thou”; it just is. And by the third month even the feeling of ”am-ness” dissolved because that feeling of am-ness is still a word. Even that word dissolves. Then you are, and then you know what you are. Before that point comes you cannot ask, ”Who am I?” Or you can go on asking continuously, ”Who am I?”, just continuously inquiring, ”Who am I ? Who am I?”, and all the answers that will be provided by the mind will be found false, irrelevant.

You go on asking, ”Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” and a point comes where you can no more ask the question. All the answers fall down, and then the question itself falls down and disappears. And when even the question, ”Who am I?” disappears, you know who you are. Gurdjieff tried from one corner: just try to remember you are. Raman Maharshi tried from another corner. He made it a meditation to ask, to inquire, ”Who am I?” And don’t believe in any answers that the mind can supply. The mind will say, ”What nonsense are you asking? You are this, you are that, you are a man, you are a woman, you are educated or uneducated, rich or poor.”

The mind will supply answers, but go on asking. Don’t accept any answer because all the answers given by the mind are false. They are from the unreal part of you. They are coming from words, they are coming from scriptures, they are coming from conditioning, they are coming from society, they are coming from others. Go on asking. Let this arrow of ”Who am I?” penetrate deeper and deeper. A moment will come when no answer will come.